Ireland's three home-grown national titles have enjoyed a reasonable six months in terms of circulation, according to the latest set of ABC audited sales figures.

But the year-on-year comparisons reveal an average fall of more than 6%, which is slightly better than the overall decline in UK regional titles.

The biggest-selling Irish Independent, with an average daily sale of 117,361 in the six months up to December 2013, was down 3.1% compared to the previous six months and 5.3% down on the year.

The Irish Times, which sold an average of 82,059 copies, was down 2.5% on the six-monthly comparison and 7.1% on the year. But it did show some improvement in the final two months of the year.

The Irish Examiner, the Cork-based paper, slipped to a total of 37,009, down 6.4% year-on-year. Its evening in Cork, the Echo, fell by 14.5% to just 14,157 copies a day.

The Herald, the Dublin evening title, sold 56,119 on average across the second half of 2013, down 4.6% on the year.

Among the national Sunday titles, the Sunday Business Post - my favoured Sunday read when I'm in the Republic - suffered a disastrous fall. In selling an average of 34,322 copies, it registered a decrease of 12.9%.

The Sunday Independent, by far the largest seller with a weekly circulation of 222,382, kept its year-on-year fall down to just 3.3%.

And the Sunday World, the red-top that sells in both the north and south, managed to sell 208,281, 4.1% down on the year.

In Northern Ireland, the Belfast Telegraph fell by 4% to 47,528, but only 36,491 of those were paid-for copies. By contrast, its main rival, the Irish News, sold all of its 40,236 copies at full cover price and nevertheless recorded a year-on-year decrease of just 1.7%.

The Ulster News Letter, which has been losing circulation for several years, fell by a further 9% to 19,550, almost all of which were paid-fors.

Most of the weekly papers across the north registered big falls. Some were very large indeed, such as the Ulster Star (-16.6%), North Belfast News (-12.2%), Larne Times (-11.8%) and the Lurgan Mail (-11.7%).

Worst performer of all was the bi-weekly Derry Journal, which lost 12.4% on its Friday issue and 11.1% on its Tuesday issue. Overall, the Journal group, which sold an average of 43,529 copies in the year up to December 2012 fell to 24,078 in the 12 months up to December 2013 - a decrease of 44.7%. Ouch!